The General Requirements for the Army Building: The Goals in “Five Sentences”

In December 1990, Jiang Zemin proposed the “five sentences” of “political qualification, military excellence, good style, strict discipline, and strong support” at the Military Political Work Conference of the PLA based on the new practices in revolutionization, modernization regularization construction of the army. The general requirements of these “five sentences” cover the basic content of army building under the new situation. “Political qualification” means always upholding the Party's absolute leadership over the army, playing an exemplary role in implementing the Party's theories, programs, guidelines and policies, upholding the nature, character and style of the people's army, and always acting as a loyal defender for the interests of the Party, the people and the socialist country. “Military excellence” means having a solid combat team ideology, exquisite military technology, good military qualities, and rapid and efficient response capabilities, and capable of effectively fulfilling the duty and mission of maintaining national security, unity and development interests. “Good style” means having good ideological style, work style, fighting style and life style, being practical and realistic, humble and cautious; applying knowledge to practices, being consistent in words and deeds; being aggressive and innovative; being brave, tenacious and resolute; working hard and acting frugally.

“Strict discipline” means strictly abiding by laws, regulations and rules, strictly abiding by political discipline, organizational discipline, military discipline and mass discipline, and ensuring that all orders are carried out and all prohibitions are observed, all actions are subject to command, and the concentration, uniformity and high stability of the troops. The term “strong support” means scientifically organizing and using manpower, material resources, financial resources, and technologies on the basis of certain economic and social conditions, so as to timely, accurately, and efficiently support the needs of army building and combat. The general requirements of these “five sentences” bring all aspects of the army's work into the path of revolutionization, modernization and regularization, so that the realization of the overall goal of army building has become a regular and basic practice of the army, providing strong overall guidance, but also with strong practicality and operability. The general requirements of these “five sentences” are an important content of Jiang Zemin's thoughts on national defense and army building. Grasping the five basic elements of politics, military, style, discipline and security, which are directly related to the generation of military combat effectiveness, has played an important guiding role in the coordinated development, overall advancement and overall progress of army building, as it has scientifically revealed the closely connected and mutually complementary dialectic and unified relationship in all aspects of army building, and clarified the idea of guiding army building with a systematic perspective.